by Jake Bible
They stare down at several broken open eggs and the green ooze that eats into the mountainside. Gas and other vapors rise up, creeping along the face of the mountain like a poisonous fog. Several more eggs fall from the sky and splat against the earth and rock, adding to the mess. Lowell and Bolton jump back a little and glance up past the broken roof of the bunker’s entrance to the sky. The undulating stingrays fly past, their bodies dropping eggs everywhere.
“What the hell are they doing?” Lowell asks. “Terraforming?”
“What?” Bolton asks. “Terraforming? This isn’t some alien planet in a sci-fi novel, Lowell.”
“It may be alien to them,” Lowell says as he points up at the stingrays. “Maybe they like their home to smell like cat piss.”
“Jesus,” Bolton says. “Like a supervolcano and giant fucking monsters weren’t bad enough. Now these things want to change the Earth into some alien landscape.”
“Just a theory, Sergeant,’ Lowell says. “I’m no expert.”
“Who fucking is with this shit?” Bolton sighs, and grabs Lowell’s shoulder. “Come on. We’ve seen what we need to. There’s no way we can get Lu out this way.”
“What about the ammonia? That shit is filling the bunker,” Lowell says. “If we don’t figure out a way to seal it off, then we’ll suffocate.”
“I know,” Bolton says. “But that’s a couple hundred feet of open air. Maybe if we had Taylor and his Team we could do it, but by ourselves? Not a chance.”
“Quitter,” Lowell smirks.
“Fuck you,” Bolton says.
Lowell and Bolton take one last look outside the bunker. The ash cloud may have returned and shrouded the landscape in grey, but at least the ash isn’t falling anymore. Which is no comfort to either man as they watch a few more acid eggs fall and explode against the ground below.
“Come on. Let’s get back,” Bolton says. “We need to figure out how to communicate with Taylor, if we can.”
“Bigif there, Sergeant,” Lowell says. “They could have been squished during the second explosion. For all we know, there’s nothing left of the bunker except where we are.”
“Better pray that’s not true,” Bolton says. “And don’t you fucking dare say that around Kyle.”
“Lay off, tough guy,” Lowell says. “The kid is stronger than you think.”
“What the fuck do you know about my son?”
“Just that he didn’t know he was your son until a few hours ago,” Lowell shrugs, “and yet he made it this far. Give the boy some credit.”
“I give him plenty of credit,” Bolton snaps. “But like you just said, he’s a boy. And we both know from experience that being a boy means just two steps away from functional stupidity.”
“Yeah, well, we had completely different boyhood experiences then, you and me,” Lowell says. “I never had the luxury of stupidity. It was function or death, Sergeant Slaughter. No middle ground in the Lowell house, no middle ground in juvie, and no middle ground in prison.”
Bolton studies Lowell for a second then nods. “Fair enough. But still keep your theories to yourself until we know for sure that we’re all that’s left.”
Lowell shrugs, but makes no promises.
***
“Hey, sure, just leave me all alone in the creaking, dusty, falling apart former government facility,” Dr. Probst says as she wanders the corridors of the bunker, her helmet dangling behind her and against her back, the oxygen tank discarded after it emptied from a leak in the aged hose. “I have complete trust that the lowest bidder that built this place didn’t cut any corners, and everything is fine and stable.”
There’s a large groan from directly above her, and she hurries down the corridor to the next junction, her hand shielding her candle’s flame from the sudden rush of air.
“Wonderful,” she says as she gets to the junction and looks back to see bits of concrete fall from the ceiling. “Just fucking wonderful. At least it doesn’t stink like ammonia as much this far back. That’s a plus.”
She sighs and turns back to the junction, looking left then right.
“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,” she says, and points to the left. “Look at me being all sciency. Left it is.”
She walks down the corridor to the left and shudders at all the cracks in the concrete walls. There are no doors on either side of the corridor, so she just keeps moving forward, one cautious step at a time. After about fifty yards, Dr. Probst stops and looks back over her shoulder. Nothing but darkness is behind her.
“Longest corridor yet,” she says, then stops and tilts her head. “Hold on. I think I remember one like this.”
Dr. Probst walks faster until she gets to another junction, and looks right.
“Hello, there,” she grins as she sees a set of double doors at the far end of the corridor. “I know you guys.”
She hurries down to the doors, then curses as she goes too fast and lets her hand fall away, causing the candle flame to blow out.
“Please have matches in my pocket. Please have matches in my pocket,” Dr. Probst says as she crouches in the pitch-blackness and sets the candle on the ground. She unzips her suit and starts going through her pockets until she finds a matchbook in her back pocket. “Phew.”
She strikes a match and lights the candle. The doors light up again, and Dr. Probst looks for the hidden latch at the bottom of the wall, but stops when she realizes something.
“No cracks,” she says as she stands and moves the candle close to the wall.
She runs the light up and down, back and forth, studying every inch of the walls around the doors. She goes over it again and again until she realizes she’s about to run out of candle.
“Fuck,” she mutters. “Not good.”
Dr. Probst carefully sets the candle down, drips some wax on the floor, and then sets the candle there to harden, making sure it doesn’t fall over. She then reaches up the arm of her suit and tears a couple of strips from the sleeve of her coveralls and holds one over the flame until it catches. Tossing the burning strip down on the ground by the wall on the left side of the corridor, she lights the second strip and sets it by the right wall.
“Not much time,” she says as she hurries to the left wall and traces her finger along one of the many huge cracks, following it until it hits the perpendicular wall with the doors. “Son of a bitch.”
The cracks stop dead. No sign of them continuing into the wall with the doors. In fact, as she leans closer, her eyes almost mashed against the wall, she can’t see any signs of stress to the structure.
“What’s it look like inside?” she wonders, then picks up the candle again and goes to the place in the base of the wall with the door activation latch.
Dr. Probst pushes open the small hatch, and then reaches inside. She finds the latch and activates it, then steps back and waits. And waits. And waits.
“Great. Just fucking great,” she mutters. “It opened for the ignorant redneck nutjob, but won’t open up for the woman with the PhD. That makes perfect sense.”
The strips of shirt sputter then go out, leaving her with just a nub of a candle. Slightly panicked, Dr. Probst goes to the other side of the doors and checks for another latch panel. She nearly cries out when she finds the hatch in a mirror position from the other one. Without hesitation she activates the latch and stands up once more.
“Please work, please work, please work,” she whispers over and over.
She starts counting off in her head, and when she reaches ten she’s almost ready to scream, but a loud clanging from the doors stifles that scream, and she rushes forward as the double doors slowly roll open, pulling back into recesses in the wall.
“Yes,” she grins as she nearly runs inside the space beyond. Just as before, fluorescent lights in the ceiling begin to slowly flicker on, revealing the enormity of what can only be described as a massive warehouse. “Yes!”
Dr. Probst licks her fingers and snuffs out the candle. She blows on the wax until it’s co
ol, then stuffs the nub in her pocket and begins to walk between the first row of crates stacked up and down the space.
The man, Gil, that had first shown her the place had said the crates were filled with ammunition, and the lettering on the sides of each confirms that. But Dr. Probst has never been one to trust blindly, so she grabs onto a crate, finds purchase for her feet, and climbs the stack until she gets to the top.
“Yikes,” she squeaks as she looks down at the floor below. “Note to self, do not fall. Broken bones are bad.”
Her arms and legs are shaky, but she takes a few deep breaths and gets herself under control as she finds clasps on the sides of the crate, undoes them, then flips the lid open, carefully bracing herself against the stack next to her.
“Yep. That’s ammo,” she says. “I think.”
She lifts one of the many dark green boxes out of the crate. The words “2400 CRTG 5.56MM” are clearly stenciled on the side. After a quick check, she finds that all the other boxes inside, at least the ones on top, say the same thing.
“Well, if anyone needs 5.56 millimeter cartridges, then I know where to get them,” she says, and places the box back inside, then closes and latches the crate.
It takes her a second to find her balance and work her way back to the floor, but she gets it done and is glad to be on solid ground again. Which makes her wonder why the ground in the warehouse is solid and not cracked like the rest of the bunker. How is this part different? How is it more stable?
“Maybe because if it falls apart, then things will explode,” she says to herself. “Makes sense that the builder put more attention on this room, warehouse, whatever.”
Dr. Probst is more than halfway down the row when the loud sound of scraping metal catches her attention. She whirls about to see the doors sliding closed and she takes off in a dead run, her eyes wide with fear. The helmet on her back snags on a crate and rips off her suit, but she ignores it and keeps running. The doors are faster than she is, and they seal shut just as she reaches them, her hands slamming into the cold grey metal surfaces.
“NO!” she yells as she pounds her fists against the doors. “No! No! No!”
It’s the pain in her hands that alerts her to the futility of her actions, and she reluctantly steps back from the doors. Dr. Probst hurries to the wall to the left, and she crouches down, hoping to find a latch panel hidden there, but all she finds is wall. A quick examination on the right side reveals the same lack of opening mechanism.
“Fuck!” she yells as she stands and kicks the doors repeatedly, then spins about, places her back to the doors, and slides down them in defeat. “Fuckety fuck!”
Dr. Probst runs her hands through her hair and tries not to cry, but she can feel the tears welling up in her eyes. She leans her head back and looks up at the ceiling, the fluorescent lights glittering through her tears. She sniffs a few times and starts to wipe her nose, then stops. Her brow furrows, and she stands up, her eyes still looking up at the lights above.
“Why haven’t you turned off?” she asks. “You had to turn on when I came in here, so why haven’t you turned off now that the doors are closed?”
She looks about at the rows and rows of crates.
“What am I missing?” she asks. “A timer? Will the lights turn off in a few minutes? Or is there some other reason they’re staying on?”
This time she does wipe her nose, then frowns at the snot on her sleeve.
“Nice,” she mutters as she looks to her left. “How about instead of straight down the middle, I check the perimeter, then go row by row? That would be the smart, sciency thing to do. And I’m nothing if not smart and sciency.”
She walks to her left, her eyes studying the wall as she goes, hoping the lights aren’t on a timer.
***
Kyle nearly jumps as his mother’s hand touches the back of his head.
“Jesus, Mom!” he shouts. “Maybe moan or mutter something first, will ya?”
“Jumpy?” Lu whispers as she struggles to sit up. She closes her eyes and decides to stay put on the floor. “Ow.”
“Connor thinks you have a concussion,” Kyle says, standing and stretching. “Thirsty? There’s some water over here.”
“Yeah,” Lu says. “My throat feels like ground glass.”
“That’s the gas,” Kyle says.
“You been farting?” Lu smiles weakly.
“Ammonia gas,” Kyle says as he goes and fetches a bottle of water. “It’s coming in from outside. Or Connor thinks so. He went to go check it out.”
“What does Dr. Probst think?” Lu asks.
“I don’t know,” Kyle says as he crouches and helps his mother take a sip. “She’s not here. Probably on the other side of the cave in. Or maybe stuck in a different room.”
“Cave in?” Lu asks. “What cave in?”
“The second eruption nearly broke this place,” Kyle says as he points to the large cracks in the wall and the way the floor is angled. “See? The bunker didn’t hold up so well for round two.”
“No shit,” Lu says. “Taylor and his Team?”
“Other side of the cave in,” Kyle says. “Maybe that Lowell guy too. Connor was going to look for him when he took off to check out the bunker and if there’s a way out.”
“Careful with Lowell,” Lu says. “He’s not a good….”
“Not a good guy. Yeah, I get it,” Kyle snaps. “Connor was pretty fucking clear on that.”
“Hey, watch your mouth,” Lu scolds. “What would your grandmother say?”
“She’d say I sound like you,” Kyle smirks.
“Yeah, probably true,” Lu says.
They are quiet for a minute, the thought of Terrie Morgan heavy between them.
“Are you sure she died, Kyle?” Lu finally asks. “You saw her die?”
“I saw her get shot and fall on her face,” Kyle says. “Then I ran. She got hit at least twice, Mom. I don’t know how she could have lived.”
“You never know. The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Lu replies.
“Now who sounds like her mom?” Kyle says.
“I could sound like worse people.” Lu shrugs, then groans at the pain it causes in her head. Her stomach growls and she frowns. “I’m hungry, but I also feel like I’m going to puke.”
“I’m hungry too,” Kyle says. “I think there are some jars of pickles over here, and some stale ramen.” He walks over to some shelves and boxes in the corner of the room, and wipes the concrete dust off them. “Wait, here are some MREs in this box. Chicken something and lasagna something. Hard to tell. The words are all faded.”
“Faded words on boxes of MREs? Yeah, maybe we should pass,” Lu chuckles softly.
“Gil, Moss, and the others ate some,” Kyle said. “I’ll bet they’re still good.”
“Good as in not spoiled,” Lu says. “I doubt they are good as in taste.” Lu’s stomach growls again, and she sighs. “Fine. Open a couple up, and let’s see what we got.”
Kyle pops open the first box and grabs out two pouches, then opens the second box and grabs two pouches from there. He walks to a collapsed table and shoves some debris out of the way until he finds a couple plastic forks and some dusty paper napkins.
“Here’s to hoping,” Kyle says, and tears open a pouch that has “CHICK ALF” stenciled on the side. He sniffs the contents, frowns, but doesn’t recoil. He sticks his fork inside and pulls out a bite of greyish glop. Closing his eyes and holding his breath, Kyle sticks the forkful into his mouth and chews quickly, then swallows. “Better than your cooking.”
“Kiss my ass, kid,” Lu smiles. “Now try the other one. I want an educated opinion.”
“You just want a guinea pig,” Kyle says as he sets down the first pouch and opens the second with the words CHICK LSGA. Tear, fork, mouth. He gags and grimaces, then puts the pouch down. “No to the lasagna. Hell no. Super hell no.”
“What’s the other one?” Lu asks.
“Chicken Alfredo,” Kyle says. “It’s
the better of the two, by far.”
“Then hand me one of those and a bottle of water,” Lu says.
“We only have a couple left,” Kyle says. “The rest of the supplies must be stored somewhere else.”
The door to the room opens and Kyle whirls around, the plastic fork stuck out in front of him.
“Hey, now, killer,” Lowell smiles. “Careful where you point that thing. You might...oh, who cares.”
He pulls the strip of towel from his face and bends over to cough.
“Move,” Bolton says as he shoves Lowell out of the way and closes the door. “Let’s try to keep the deadly gas out just a little, okay?”
Lowell gives him a thumbs up, but keeps coughing.
“Hey,” Lu smiles.
“Hey, yourself,” Bolton smiles back. “What you got there?”
“Shit in a pouch,” she says.
“Good shit?” Bolton asks.
“Edible shit,” Kyle says. “There’s more over there. Stay away from the lasagna.”
“There’s lasagna?” Lowell asks as he finally straightens up and takes a couple deep breaths. “What kind?”
“The disgusting kind,” Kyle says.
“I assume that,” Lowell says, “but what flavor of disgusting?”
“Chicken,” Lu says. “Help yourself.”
“I think I will,” Lowell says. “I don’t care how it tastes, I could eat anything right now.”
Bolton throws him a pouch and rips open one of the chicken lasagna ones, upends it, and starts eating straight from the pouch. Lowell does the same to his, and Lu and Kyle watch the two men, their eyes wide with disbelief and disgust. The two men finish the food in just a few swallows, then belch simultaneously.
“How are you guys not puking?” Kyle asks.
“You’ve never had the shrimp scampi,” Bolton says.
“Or eaten Federal prison food,” Lowell adds.
“This is a million times better,” Bolton says.
“Totally,” Lowell adds, then nods at the box. “Toss me another one.”
“Fuck that,” Kyle says, then grimaces as his stomach grumbles. “Oh. Uh...how’s the toilet situation?”
